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No. 572 - A "Y'ALL BE CAREFUL" SOCIETY

No. 572

The next password is tudor

Jim Davidson NEWSPAPER COLUMN

A "Y'ALL BE CAREFUL" SOCIETY

When I get to thinking about our society today, I'm reminded of a story I heard several years ago. The story goes that a pilot was approaching an airport in a small Southern community ready to land. This airport was so small they only had one runway. The pilot radioed the control tower for landing instructions, and the controller told him he was clear to land, and to come in from the north. As he was about ready to let his wheels down, he heard another pilot also request landing instructions.
This controller also told this pilot he was clear to land and to come in from the south. At this point, the first pilot radioed back and said, "Didn't you just tell me to land on your one and only runway and to come in from the north, and now you have just told another pilot to land on your one and only runway, and to come in from the south?" At this point the air traffic controller said, "Yeah, y'all be careful, hear?"
For me, this pretty well sizes up what is happening all over our country today. Wherever we turn, while not in these exact words, people are saying "y'all be careful, hear?" and here are a few examples of what I mean by that. A person who deliberately sells alcohol to underage drinkers and watches them drive away in an automobile is saying, "y'all be careful, hear?" The company that manufactures and sells tobacco products, knowing full well these products are responsible for thousands of premature cancer-related deaths in our country each year, is also saying in essence, "Y'all be careful, hear?" The people who peddle smut and pornography are in the same class.
The people who are flooding our airwaves with gambling programs serving to create a new generation of gamblers are also saying, "Y'all be careful, hear?" While some people can afford to gamble and have self discipline, millions can't afford it and will become addicts. There are thousands of college students today, along with millions of other people, who are addicted to gambling and this will ultimately ruin their lives. Personally, I don't gamble but I respect the rights of those who do.
The point I am making is the people who are involved in these things could care less for the lives they are destroying when they say, in essence, we want you to do it but, "y'all be careful, hear?"
While I am at it, I may as well target another group that is devastating our nation. I'm referring to those who are involved in illegal drugs. There is no way to calculate the cost in terms of the loss of life and human suffering the drug peddlers are wreaking on our people. Again, especially when they become addicted themselves, they don't care about how many lives they are destroying. These people are saying, in essence, "y'all be careful, hear?"
At this point I would like to pose a very simple question, and I hope you will stop and think about it. What is happening to our country? The answer lies in one single verse in the Bible. In 1 Timothy 6:10, it says, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Notice that this verse does not say that money is evil. It's the love of money that causes most of our problems. In short, the people who are involved in enterprises and activities where people's lives are destroyed are more interested in the money they receive than the potential harm they are causing other people.
Over the past several years we have gotten out of balance when it comes to earning money, even money from legitimate sources. Our whole economic system is based on earning a fair profit, and that is what has made us the greatest economic success story in the history of the world. However, when you buy a ticket and attend a major league baseball game and they charge you $4.50 for a bottle of water, you just know something is wrong.
In writing this column I am not pointing a finger at anyone because when I do that there are three pointing back at me. I just encourage you to think about how you can make a difference.
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a motivational speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, Ark. 72034. To support literacy, buy his book, "Learning, Earning & Giving Back.")